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LXer Weekly Roundup for 24-Aug-2008

This week we have Anti-Linux sites to follow, old flame wars, scientific software for Linux, Microsoft and Novell renew their pact, Microsoft attempts to save face with Vista advertising campaign, Linux myths debunked and I wrap it all up with a really bad patch cable and a nice nugget of FUD.

This week we have Anti-Linux sites to follow, old flame wars, scientific software for Linux, Microsoft and Novell renew their pact, Microsoft attempts to save face with Vista advertising campaign, Linux myths debunked and I wrap it all up with a really bad patch cable and a nice nugget of FUD.

5 Anti-Linux Sites You Must Follow!: Ever since I read Jeremy Allison’s blog post about why we need to hear criticisms from people who dislikes Linux, I have been thinking a lot about what he said and how it hits very close to my own philosophy about life: In order to improve, you need to be open to criticisms; even from your enemies. One of the (many) things that most people dislike about Microsoft is that they don’t have any real communication between the developers and the users; so when you discover a bug or have opinions about a feature that can be improved or added, there is no real easy way to directly (or indirectly) communicate with a developer. However, recently they have showed some improvement by opening up blogs for IE8 beta and Windows 7, where product developers actively communicate with users. So why should we turn a blind eye towards Linux critics?

The top 4 internet flame wars about free software: Everyone knows about the infamous internet wars. Ranging from operating systems to text editors to code indentation style, these wars have wreaked havoc on the web for years. The topics range from serious topics like religion to serious geek topics like operating systems to just plain stupid topics like code indentation style. So today, I’m going to go through a list of some of the most famous topics and remind you of a few of the more, er, “famous” battles.

Powerful graphical tools for Ubuntu Linux:
If you want to know how much disk space you have on a Windows machine, what do you do? There's a number of different ways of getting that information, but the way that I usually use is to go to Windows Explorer and right click on the drive letter and select Properties. This opens up a window which looks at the drive and tells me how many folders and items there are, how big it is and how much space is left. In Linux, how can I see how I get the same information?

Why Vista is Universally Hated and Other Training Truths: Microsoft products have always presented a paradox for organizations. On one hand they seem to be universally derided. On the other, they remain the corporate standard. Open source, SaaS/online and other alternatives have had a hard time gaining widespread traction in large organizations. That's partly because companies would likely rather deal with the devil they know, a de facto standard, rather than something else, and partly due to institutional inertia.

10 Total Commander Alternatives for Linux: Although we all remember that everything started with legendary Norton Commander, somehow lots of TC users religiously believe that every other, two pane file manager, is a not worthy clone. They all share the same roots, but TC with its rich Plugin library managed to capture the largest user base. In this article I will try to cover the most popular alternatives for both TC and NC. It is not a review though, so you won’t find any particular recommendation at the end. Everyone chooses the set of features that is relevant for his or her needs.

Torvalds: No picnic to become major Linux coder: In an e-mail interview with ZDNet Asia's sister site ZDNet UK on Friday, Torvalds said that, while it is relatively easy for coders and organizations to contribute small patches, the contribution of large patches, developed in isolation, could lead to both new and established contributors becoming frustrated.

Is the “killer app” argument dead?: The other day I was talking with a bunch of other tech heads about the ongoing Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux market share war and why, from a stats point of view, that Mac and Linux were still trailing far behind Windows. “It all revolves around killer apps,” pipes up one of the tech heads. “The problem with both Apple and Linux is that neither OS has a compelling killer app driving the user base.” The conversation then went off on to discuss apps such as Photoshop and AutoCAD and how with Windows you have a single unified platform that’ll run almost any professional grade package that you can think of, while with Mac and Linux your choices are restricted. Bull.

42 of the Best Free Linux Scientific Software: Science is the effort of trying to understand how the physical world works. From observation and experimentation, science uses physical evidence of natural phenomena to compile data and analyze the collated information. Science really prospers and advances when individuals share the results of their experiments with others in the scientific community. There is a certain logic that scientific software should therefore be released in a freely distributable environment.

9 Linux Myths Debunked: When it comes to Linux there are 3 kinds of people, those who never heard of it, those who are afraid of it, and those who hate it and spread falsities about it. I don’t really care about the first, they probably aren’t really technologically literate anyways, as long as they have E-mail they are content. While the second group is the result of the actions of the third. Let’s hit two birds with one stone shall we?

Fedora 10 Takes Shape: What does the future hold for Linux development at Red Hat? A look at some of the new features coming in the Fedora 10 Linux distribution release might yield some clues. Currently in early development with a feature freeze scheduled for the end of August, Fedora 10 includes a host of improvements that aim to improve audio, packaging, networking and security features.

Microsoft, Novell Expand Interoperability Partnership: Microsoft and Novell expand their interoperability partnership with Microsoft buying up to $100 million in SUSE Linux certificates. The partnership helps enable SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Windows Server to work together in the datacenter. Moreover, the companies will continue to work collaboratively on virtual-ization, systems management, directory and identity federation, document format compatibility, acces-sibility technology, and the Moonlight multimedia framework.

Microsoft is profiting from Linux: Microsoft isn't just buying Linux subscriptions from Novell to give away...it's buying them so they can sell them. So that means for the past 18 months, Microsoft has been selling Linux. How much Microsoft is actually making by selling Linux is difficult to determine but it could be as much a $99 million.

Linux popularity across the globe: The Linux landscape is constantly changing and has a strong community of both developers and users. But where is Linux the most popular, and where are the different Linux distributions the most popular? To try to answer these questions, we have looked at data from Google with the highly useful Insights for Search, which gave us a number of interesting and often surprising results. Aside from just looking at Linux itself, we have included eight common Linux distributions in this survey: Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Fedora, Debian, Red Hat, Mandriva, Slackware and Gentoo.

Microsoft Seinfeld Strategy to Save Vista is Pathetic: Microsoft has announced a $300M dollar ad campaign, featuring 90s TV star Jerry Seinfeld, which according to multiple reports has been designed to save Vista and salvage Microsoft's battered reputation. There is so much wrong with this strategy, it's really hard to know where to start.

5 Least Popular Desktop Environments for Linux: KDE, GNOME, and Xfce are without doubt the most well-known desktop environments for Linux at the moment. They are utilized by majority of Linux Distributions simply because they are very much stable and usable. But did you know that there are other capable Free and Open-source desktop environments that you probably haven’t heard of?

IT needs to retool tech workers for Linux growth: Are there enough Linux experts to go around? Here’s an interesting article in ComputerWorld from this week: “Linux unchained.” Author Mary Pratt investigates the claim that Linux growth is outstripping the supply of actual Linux-proficient techs.

Why my email no work?: This isn't necessarily Linux related. But some things are just too good to keep to yourself.

Why would anyone choose Linux when they already have Windows?: I know there is a great debate taking place about which operating system is better. Jack Wallen, host of the Linux and Open Source blog, started a lengthy discussion asking the question: Why would you choose Windows over Linux? I thought that was kind of funny, because recently I have been asking myself the opposite question: Who would choose to switch to Linux?